Federal Judicial Center Study on Effects of the Class Action Fairness Act

Just released: Impact of the Class Action Fairness Act on the Federal Courts: Preliminary Findings from Phase Two's Pre-CAFA Sample of Diversity Class Actions. Key findings include:

• Plaintiffs filed motions to certify a class in fewer than one in four class actions;
• Judges granted six motions, in five cases, to certify a litigation class, and all five cases resulted in a class settlement;
• Before a class settlement, plaintiffs typically had to overcome at least one challenge to the merits in the form of a dispositive motion;
• Parties proposed class settlements in twenty-one, or 9%, of the 231 class actions;
• Judges approved all twenty-one proposed class settlements; in three cases approval came only after modification of the settlement;
• Plaintiffs filed motions to remand in 75% of the removed cases and judges granted remand motions almost 70% of the time, resulting in the remand of more than half of the removed cases;
• Voluntary dismissal was the most frequent disposition of cases not remanded, occurring 38% of the time;
• Motions activity was relatively infrequent in the sample: 56% of the class actions had one or zero motions filed; and
• One in five cases was terminated by the court granting a dispositive motion.

[JH]